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Boromite Guilds
The Boromite Guilds The Boromites are an extreme morph amongst panhumans. At some time in the past their ancestors were bio-adapted to live and work upon asteroids with thin atmospheres, low gravity and extreme temperatures. They are able to endure hostile environments more easily than any other human, and are probably the toughest and most unusual looking of all the countless human morphs. They have thick, gnarly hides covered in horny nodules. They originated in the mining colonies of Borom where a rocky asteroid belt extends around the system’s star in lieu of other planets. Today the Boromites have spread through Antarean space and live upon many worlds within the Panhuman Concord, the Isorian Shard, and beyond. They have no permanent settled worlds of their own, but form an itinerant work force with a strong cultural identity and secretive customs based upon their Guilds. They avoid becoming absorbed into the societies they live amongst because they are almost invisible to the nanosphere of IMTel societies such as the Concord and Isorians. They remain almost entirely apart from regular society, a reclusive, insular and self-governing sub-culture wherever they happen to be. Although they are spread throughout Antarean space, Boromites maintain strong contacts with each other via the trading networks of the Freeborn. Boromite labour gangs are but one of the many human services traded by the Vardos of the Freeborn. Occasionally, Guilds will band together to fight, most likely to secure some mineral rich planet or scavenge some lucrative wreck or abandoned facility. The Guilds Boromite forces are based upon their work gangs, generally speaking extended families, which belong to competing labour Guilds. Guilds are organised for self-protection and held together by insoluble ties of honour and obligation. The leaders of these Guilds, the secret core at the heart of the extended clan, are aged and much feared matriarchs. Amongst Boromites it is the womenfolk who head up the families and whose word in law. In some respects Boromite Guilds have all the hallmarks of organised criminal gangs, and are behind many of the subversive activities throughout Antarean space. Rival Guilds sometimes get involved in turf wars. Vendettas between old rivals can last for generations, but all will close ranks in the face of a common enemy – which is pretty much everyone else as far as the Boromites are concerned. Their hardiness and determination make them highly valued mercenary fighters. Boromite gangers can be armed in almost any fashion, but they uniquely make use of weapons developed from mining tools including mass compactors and frag borers. Reflex shielding is common and the metallic nodes that support the reflex armour field are often fixed directly into the wearer’s thick hide. The Boromite Guilds are all that they have of a home, for long ago the Boromites spread to the ends of the Antarean universe. They became a race of wanderers, rarely staying in one place for long, always keeping themselves to themselves and distrusting of other human races. They speak little enough of anything to outsiders, but amongst themselves they sing the ancient songs and recall the legends of their home amongst the asteroid belts of Borom. Borom itself vanished into the Antarean collapse at the end of the Second Age and has never been found since. The Xon poets claimed that the Boromites were set to wandering the stars ever in search of their ancient home and that one day they would return to it, but only at the ending of the universe when the Watchers returned to claim their own.